Daughter of War
by Smiling Eyes
Summary: Achilles killed the Amazon Penthesileia on the battlefield outside Troy. Or did he?
1. Warrior's pledge

**Daughter of War**

_Achilles killed the Amazon Penthesileia on the battlefield outside Troy. Or did he?_

**Warrior's pledge**

It was way after midnight on a dark and moonless night, where the dank humidity smelled foul and felt suffocating, like a thin, sticky coating against her skin and the mosquitos were active, buzzing around her ears like relentless daemons. They were out for her blood, they like so many others, still to Penthesileia, they were among the more harmless ones. Harmless but ever so annoying, she thought as she slapped her chin, where one of the little bastards had sat down to feed. No, that talkative Euphyrion's salve didn't help as he had promised it would. If she ever saw the little fraud again, she would cut off his ears. Or perhaps something else.

The Amazon Penthesileia felt her clothes clamming to her body as she shifted on the log where she was sitting and staring into the slowly dying camp fire. Those watches were boring, it never happened anything save for the mosquitoes, still they had to keep it up, or else they could all bet their asses upon something really attacking them in the middle of the night. Those darn Greeks or just some mundane bandits of the kind which were drawn like the flies to a war like this. This endlessly nerve-grating and stupid war which had dragged on for more than eight years now. A war, said to be about the kidnapped Queen Helen. Penthesileia snorted, stupid excuses for kids and for bards were that, of course this war was about money, just like every other war. Wars were always about the bucks, had always been and would always be, however cleverly masked as something else. In this case the war was about the richnesses generated by the trade routes through the Bosphorus. These trade routes were controlled by Priam' Troy, however that gluttonous and fat Greek Agamemnon and his greedy pack of porks wanted it as well.

However Penthesileia and her sisters in arms were here to make sure the Greeks were not going to get those bounties. Or at least do their best to try, however she had little faith that they might actually do any real difference. Simply because they were too few. But it hadn't really been their first hand choice to come here, in fact they would never had done so if it wasn't for that event with a now dead sister in arms. Dead by her, Penthesileia's hand.

Sighing she let the memories flood her once again, agonizing her mind with their tormenting rawness. The hunt, the thick woods, torn tearing at their clothes and bare skin, even more mosquitos than this place. The rugged terrain, the marshy ground with the many water-filled holes that seem to grab hold of their feet and hinder and triple them. Penthesileia had been annoyed that day, why did they keep pursuing this pack of games in this place instead of going out on the steppe instead, where the hunt was so much easier. But it was that darn Doretha who wanted to show off again, that stuck up idiot bitch who was all brawns and no brains and who was pissed with Penthesileia's best friend Klonie over some idiot thing, which Penthesileia couldn't care less about.

Just to make her stupid point that darn valkhyria had dragged them all off their intended target and into the woods to pursue beasts there. Just because she could. Penthesileia just wanted to scream at the insanity of it. However Doretha had been the highest in rank of the hunting party that day and Penthesileia knew just what it meant to question authority, then you had to have a lot more than a general frustration to lay out as evidence, or you were not going to acquire anything. So Penthesileia shut up and played along.

She played along all right, to the bitter end! Where she had seen something dark, reddish brown, thinking it being a deer, and in her mad desire to finish this insanity she had put an arrow to her bow and fired off – only to hear the piercing, shrill sound of a human yell. Slamming her hand to her forehead, dropping her bow, she had realized her mistake; she had hit a hunting comrade instead of a deer. For a second or two, she had been paralyzed by the consequences of her action. Then she had collected her emotions, put a lid on them and stormed forward on the double, like bolting horse had she crashed through the thick underbrush, not bothering with twigs slapping bleeding wounds across her forehead or needle-sharp torn tearing up deep gashes in her upper arms.

No, the Amazon had made it over there, only to realize it was too late. For once in her life she cursed her accuracy with the bow and arrow, the unfortunate shot had hit Hippolyte right in her throat, severing that main artery, which served the brain with blood. Thanks for small mercies, Hippolyte hadn't suffered, her death had been almost instant, and her gray eyes were now staring unseeingly into the air.

According to the Amazon law, life had to be soothed with life, and since Penthesileia was not considered solely at fault, because the whole group had been stumbling around within the woods, they all were found guilty of man-slaughter, and after the Oracle had listened with the gods, the sentence had come crystal clear. The only way for the group to remedy themselves was on the battlefield. And since Priam of Troy had asked his Amazon allies for help, what better then to travel west, to Troy to serve the sieged city. Penthesileia, who had actually shot the killing arrow, got an extra mission. She was to seek out the Greek hero Achilles and kill him.

"Yeah right," Penthesileia scoffed as she threw a new log on the fire. "They could as well ask me to kill Poseidon himself. I'd have as much luck with that as to kill Achilles. Bloke's a demigod, they say. Undefeated in battle. They even say he'd be up to take on Hector himself. So how am I going to do him in? Damn you, mother? Why did you have to go on with that story of having laid in love with the God of War, claiming that I was the daughter of Ares? Such nonsense! Such proud hubris! Such an embarrassment and now you get to pay for it – as do I!"

Penthesileia had never known life for being fair, only fools believed in such a thing. Fools and the lazy. However these days it felt like overly unfair to her. Not that she minded going into battle, this was what she had been trained for all her life. She actually did feel that invigorating rush of adrenaline when launching into the fight, riding ahead of her sisters in arms, to make a difference down in the burning sand in front of the closed gates of the mighty city of Troy. It was not that, not at all. No, it was her mission, a suicide mission it was. And suicide missions were for fools. Or those who had been backed so far off into a corner that there was no way out. Such was her fate now that her only two choices was either go further with this into a certain death, or run away like a coward, losing her face, and taint her sisters in arms, her real sisters and her mother and aunts with shame. No, the second alternative was not an alternative. There was only one thing to do, and that was to face Achilles, and at least make sure she made an impression upon the man. Make sure he never forgot her. That was her woe, that was the best she could do.

A night bird called out with a strident chirp, and the next thing the Amazon heard, was the snapping of a twig. In one swift move she flew up and pulled her blade, wished she had not stared that deep into her fire, because her eyes weren't used to the darkness surrounding her.

"Who's there?"  
"It's just me, Derinoe," the somewhat husky soprano replied and the half a head shorter, brunette woman stepped into the circle of light. "Just needed to take a leak."

Pushing back her sword in the scabbard again, Penthesileia relaxed and then she rolled her somewhat stiff shoulders.  
"I might as well sit down," Derinoe went on. "I'm on the next guard anyway. Where's Derimakheia and Bremousa?"  
"Patrolling," her sister in arm replied. "First I thought it was them returning early. It's nice getting company, it's one of those nights, when you think the dark is full with enemies, bad vibes creeping like vapors along the ground."  
"Ain't all nights like that in this forlorn place," Derinoe said as she slumped down on the log next to Penthesileia. "Filled with bad omens, strange sounds and creepy beasts."  
"I agree to the latter," Penthesileia said and slapped across her neck. "Darn mosquitoes."  
"That too," Derinoe said. "I think it's the war that does it."  
"Sending up those little blood suckers at us?"  
"Rather tainting the whole atmosphere, making it unbearable. The war attracts bad daemons, who comes along to feed upon our fears, sending us nightmares."

Penthesileia made a face, saying nothing. That was superstition, and she was so over it. The few daemons actually existing had been deprived of most their powers, the mightiest ones had either been killed by the gods or ran off to edge of the world. Only the small ones, the weak ones had managed to avoid the all-seeing eyes of the all-father. Nowadays they stayed put beneath within their murky tree stumps or underground caves.  
"I'm not having nightmares," Penthesileia said after a while.  
"Me neither and it's because of this," Derinoe reached inside of her tunic and retrieved a charm, a tiny bronze medallion hanging upon a leather string. It pictured the noble profile of the goddess Athena, carrying a hoplite helmet, pushed back to reveal her face."

"Athena, huh," Penthesileia said non-committedly.  
"She protects me, has always been doing so," the other Amazon said, not without pride in her voice.  
"You think she'll let you go home in one peace."  
"Cannot know for sure," Derinoe folded her hands around her knee. She lacked two fingers on her left hand, so it locked a bit peculiar. "Only thing I know for sure is that she'll send my honor home in one piece. My infant daughter will not hear about a mother who made a fool out of herself off in Ilium."

"Yes," Penthesileia nodded solemnly, Derinoe was one of the few in the band who had children. There were her, Alkibie and Hippothoe who had given birth to daughters. And then poor Antibrote had birthed a worthless boy, the poor thing. And poor her, Penthesileia thought, she would never get the chance to have a daughter, she would never see her line continue, it was going to end here, on the sand plains of Ilium.

"Yes, the honour," she started all over. "Sometimes it seems that's the only thing we have left."  
"Yes, but we will use it well," Derinoe replied. "And how about your father?"  
"Don't you too start now," Penthesileia scoffed.  
"Start what?"  
"All that bull with Ares, I'm so over it now I might as well fall down dead here in front of the campfire, and I'll never even get to see Achilles, not to mention trying my skill against him."

"So it's not true then?"  
"What do you think? Would the God of War bother with my mother? Al right, she's comely, and so am I, not that it's going to help me any now. But the God of War, I mean really, he who has access to all the beauties of the Divine Nation. Including the fantastic Aphrodite."  
"Why wouldn't he?" Derinoe sounded oddly solemn. "As a matter of fact, he's the god of war, I'm sure he'd want something more vibrant, more perseverant than mere beauty. And your mother Otrera is a skilled and brave warrior, with a great record behind her. I'd recon she'd be just the woman for Lord Ares."

"And on what ground are you making these assumptions? Have you asked him?"  
"Don't be ridiculous!"  
"Honestly, Deri, don't you hear yourself how ludicrous this all sounds? As if I should be a daughter of HIM? Would I end up in such a hopeless situation then, you think? And pull all of you with me down too?"  
"Leia, don't lambast yourself, we were all at fault that hopeless day, we should never have ventured into that stupid wood for a game which wasn't even there? No, we should have stood up as one and told Doretha we were not going to do it. And if she insisted, she could've as well have gone herself. The idiot! Well she did get hers after all."

Not responding in words, Penthesileia simply nodded her head. Doretha had been the first one to bite the dust. An arrow in her lower back, hit so bad it had injured her liver. And they hadn't even reached the plains of Ilium when that had happened. Doretha had fought in pain and agony for five days, lying on a cart while they rode on, becoming weaker and weaker, plagued by feverish visions. And on the sixth day she had died, and they had put up a funeral pyre for her, watching her body being consumed by the flames, sung their songs and danced their dances. Everything according to custom. Still, Penthesileia had felt the undercurrent there, a notion that justice had been done, or at least some malice. Because they all knew, that hadn't it been for Doretha, none of them would've been here. Well, perhaps Antibrote, Thermodosa and the twins Polemousa and Bremousa, who'd probably volunteered to go anyway. In search for honor, glory and some good old adventure.

They had been the most eager and zestful when the group of young amazons had made their War Pledges, the pledge all Amazons made, to come home victorious or to not come home at all. Most of all was plain stupid according to Penthesileia, but she had to play along in the game. She had to go up there on the dais and face all the other women, and the few servant men as well, and recite the age old pledge, even if she didn't believe in a word of it. Then again, what did it really matter, to say a few words, if it made the older women happy she might as well do it and get over with it. What really mattered was that they were here now. Here and fought a war most people believed was already lost, Hector or no Hector behind those mighty walls.

Hector, son of Priam himself, was said to be the only one who could be a match for Achilles. Or if it was the other way around, she had heard that too, and she guessed it depended on which side you were on when that was said.

"Perhaps it's the gods," Derinoe said after a while.  
"What?" Penthesileia snapped out of here reveries.  
"The gods, perhaps it's their plan after all, to send us here."  
"Why should they?"  
"Why not, they have always been having strange ideas. Perhaps it's their idea of having fun, pitching Ares' daughter against Thetys' son."  
"But will you stop it already?" Penthesileia almost snarled. "I don't want to hear a word anymore about my presumed father. It's all just silly nonsense anyway."

"Girls," a voice suddenly rang out, and the next moment Derimakheia and Bremousa stepped into the circle of light.  
"Hello," Penthesileia turned to greet them, and Derimakheia went on:  
"The way you two chat or quarrel or what it is you're doing, you wouldn't hear a thing should the whole Greek army come careening at you. Riding on elephants!"  
"Eli-say what?" Derinoe asked.  
"Another fabulous creature the Greeks made up," Derimakheia scorned with a shrug as she sat down on a boulder opposite of Penthesileia and Derinoe. "Do get in and waken up Alkibie and Klonie now so that yours truly might finally be able to crawl down in bed."

"I will," Penthesileia volunteered and stood up and Bremousa turned silently and followed Penthesileia off to the tents. By the campfire Derimakheia and Derinoe started to chatter again, and Penthesileia thought she heard the name Ares being said several times. Rolling her eyes she wondered just how she could make that wear off. It was like a scar or a tattoo. Impossible to get rid of, it seemed.

Bremousa didn't say a thing though, she was one of the most taciturn people Penthesileia knew, and now she actually preferred the silence of the other girl to the others endless blabbing. Especially when it was about all those idiot things.

Entering the tents, Penthesileia approached first Klonie and then Alkibie and woke them up. The latter was reluctant and sleepy as usual and the former rose dutifully and started to dress.  
"Everything calm out there?" she asked.  
"Yes, if you don't count the mosquitos it's been a rather eventless night so far," Penthesileia responded.  
"The mosquitos seldom bothers me that much," Klonie began before yawning so you could've driven a siege machine through her gape. Then she stretched and cracked her fingers before starting to putting on her armor and finally she hung her sword at her back. Then she went over to Alkibie, slapping her across the back:  
"Hurry up now, lass, I bet the others really want to go to bed."

"I'm tired, I'm so sick of this," Alkibie complained. "I really wonder what in Tartarus I'm doing here."  
"You're making a difference," Kloine tried to encourage her.  
"No, I'm making a fool out of myself," Alkibie made a face, as she started dressing and grabbed her blade as well. "I was never meant to become a warrior. I'm a numbers girl, I'd be quite a bit more useful back home keeping track of what's in the storage and things like that."  
"Yes, yes, yes," Penthesileia sighed. "We're a lot who shouldn't be here. Who were perhaps forced to give that Warriors Pledge, just because we were too much of cowards back then to stand our ground and say 'we're not going and to heck with oracles and all that crap'."

"Penthesileia!" Alkibie suddenly turned very alert. "Watch your mouth, don't speak like that!"  
"Al right, all right, all right," the other woman groaned while she lifted the tunic over her head, her dark curls sparkling with static. "I will do, just to keep the peace."

Then she pulled out her sleeping bag and crawled down into it with a groin. First of all, she didn't believe in any kind of divine retribution for speaking badly about oracles and their interpretations of things and secondly, what could really be worse. She was going to fight Achilles and she was going to die in the hot sand beneath his feet. She had accepted this faith now, she had accepted that she was not going to live more than perhaps a week more. But she was going to go with her head held high, at least figuratively spoken. She had taken this pledge of war, and she would be damned if she was not going to live up to it. The only thing she wished was that there would have been a way for her to send at least some of her sisters in arms home. Everyone should not have to supper because she had fallen through on that disastrous hunting day.

With those thoughts Penthesileia turned around and shut out the small whispers still heard and soon she was sound asleep, drifting off in dreams far away from war and madness.


	2. Blood in the hot sand

**Blood in the hot sand**

Sweet Artemis, but was that man huge? Huge and scary. Biting her lips, Penthesileia regarded Achilles from a far, regarded his six foot five bulk, clad in shining armour of the kind that was professionally molded to leave as little openings as possible and still not hinder the user too much or being too heavy or cumbersome to wear. Achilles' bronze helmet covered his face and was crowned with a notable red, white and black crescent and he carried a long sword and a ditto spear, both weapon looking really heavy, still he treated them as if they were wooden toys, swung them with such quick ease that they almost appeared harmless - until they bit into the enemy. And the enemy in turn bit the dust.

He had still not seen her yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time before he would. But when he did – that would be it. Penthesileia would do what she had come here to Ilium for, she would fight Achilles, and she would do her very best. Perhaps she might even get the smallest of chances. A lucky stroke with the blade, a mistake on his side. A small opening in his armour. If she could get just one chance, then she would take it. Sometimes you were fortunate after all...

Oh, she had heard the talk about this guy. She had been told that he was invulnerable, that no weapon could harm him, because his mother, Thetys the Oceanide, was said to have dipped him in the deathland river Styx when he was but a baby. Other had said Thetys held Achilles over an open fire.

Yeah, right!

Such bullocks! How could anyone with a sane mind believe in nonsense like that?

No, Penthesileia was convinced that Achilles was simply damn good at what he did. He fought with skill and perseverance, he was well trained, fast in his reflexes, strong and persistent. A really good fighter to cut to the point. And there were always legends told about those amazing combatants, she knew them from her own people as well, the ladies of old time who had been as far as down in Athens to make war. Most of what was told about those fighters was exaggerated beyond reason these days, and everybody knew it. At the same time, no one wanted to spoil a good story and thus all those amazing deeds were remembered and re-told, no matter if they didn't hold the slightest grain of truth. Or at least had been spiced up beyond recognition.

As Penthesileia circled the area where her adversary-to-be was battling some Trojans, she took the chance to study his way of fighting, to see if there was any weakness she could exploit, any dead angle where he didn't look out. But it was hard, the man was too fast and versatile to really get an understanding of. The Amazon was surprised that a man with such a big body could be so quick in his movements. It was like the stories told about Herakles, the warrior who had become a god. He was also huge, and strong as an ox, but still very fast.

Achilles was also versatile and full of surprises, he spun and flipped, kicked and jumped and he seemed to shift from one position to another in a completely random pattern, his fighting style was different, didn't follow any of the classic schools of martial arts. This unpredictability made him hard to gauge. Hard to beat.

"You can still change your mind, you know," Derimakheia's fervent voice could be heard from behind her, it was panting slightly, the tall girl had just sliced some Greeks apart, and she saw in the corner of her eyes how her sister in arms was covered in blood and other gory fluids.  
"No, I can't," Penthesileia responded gravely. "I've came all this way from Amazonia to do my duty, to clean myself from the crime I committed. And to clean all of you girls as well."  
"Well, we're in this together, Leia," Polemousa said from her other side. "Let's go together as one force and take the big Greek out. Then we've done here and those who want can go home."

"Those who want? What do you mean by that, Polemousa?" Penthesileia couldn't help asking.  
"That no matter what, I'm staying," her sister in arms elucidated. "This is me. This is what I was meant to do. Warring. The life at home is killing me, I detest the day to day work with hunting and cooking and harvests and similar doabaouts. No, I'd take the sword in my hand any day, even if it'll be my death."  
"Which it probably will," Derimakheia said. "No offence, but not many will return from this war."

"Enough chit-chat," Penthesileia huffed. "And thanks for your offer, dear friends, but I do have to take Achilles out on my own. Or at least try. Because if we start to tamper with the god's will now, then we might not regain our honour after all. And I refuse to be responsible for that. I'm not a coward."  
"Is not about being a coward," Polemousa protested. "Achilles is invincible, it's a suicide mission. And I know someone who once said suicide missions were for idiots."  
"I admit having said that, yes," Penthesileia sighed. "But I've come too far to stop now. I might be an idiot, but I rather be a fool with my honor retained than some clever and shrewd girl who loses her face. So I have go the whole way. And for the second time today, if I don't come back, fare well, my sisters. It has been an honour and a delight to work with you!"

With those words, Penthesileia decided to stop procrastinating. Therefore she launched herself into battle, turning her back on the two surprised Amazons. She had a faint plan in her mind, she was going to try for the element of surprise, attack the big Greek from the left rear side, because she had noted that he was slightly slower in noticing what was going on there. She could hear Polemousa calling out her name over the war clamor, but she chose to ignore it. She refused to wait anymore, postponing the inevitable was just adding to her discomfort.

Not bothering with war cries or such nonsense, she rushed forwards, circled the worst congestions, and sped forwards in the hot sand, feeling the hot, dusty air rush through her nostrils as her heart rate sped up and the adrenaline started to gush through her veins, sharpening her senses and strengthening her muscles. This was it! She was out to get Achilles, and there was no backing out this time.

It was just one way, forward, either to victory or to death.

It was her way!

Lucky for her, Achilles towered about a head over the rest of the fighters, and with that characteristic helmet crest, he was impossible to mistake. The only thing she had to do was focusing on that crest. Yes! She sped faster towards him, striking down a few enemies who got in her way, rounding some Trojans, knowing she should probably have given them a hand. But she was a woman on a mission, and with a clear goal ahead.

Achilles!

However, as Penthesileia was almost at him, the big Greek turned slightly, and she understood in an instance that he had spotted her. So much for that element of surprise! However she could not let that bother her now. Instead she called out his name, as she pulled her blade and lashed out against him, going for his somewhat unprotected throat.

His blade came up in response, clashing with hers and the bronze was ringing out its well-known song of battle and death. She disconnected, took a slight step to her side and attacked again, to once more being met with his riposte, Achilles spinning his arm around meeting Penthesileia's sword again, parrying hard before slamming down upon it which such a forceful move that she almost had to fight just to keep hold on her blade. She huffed and stepped to the right, as she took a firmer grip of her shield and met his first real attack by raising that one, feeling the forceful impact as his sword hit the bronze with a loud bang.

Skidding back, Penthesileia lowered the shield and commenced a new attack, which was met with a new twist of Achilles' sword as he came up to meet her. He stepped closer as their blades disconnected and for a second they both hesitated. For the first time she beheld his eyes, they were blue-green like the sea and coolly calculating, slightly squeezed together.  
"Amazon, huh," he huffed.  
"You bet your ass," she responded in a clipped voice. Then she lashed out again, in a fierce attack, which actually forced the huge Greek to back off two or three steps.

But only for a second or two did Penthesileia manage to have him lose his balance, then Achilles came for her again, even faster and harder this time, his blade striking out in several wide arches, backhand, forehand, backhand, forehand, which had her parry like mad, stepping first to the left, to avoid him from getting to her waist, which was suddenly becoming exposed. The next second she tried an old trick, lashing out with her right foot while spinning on the left, with the aim to hit the back end of his knee and bring him off balance. However the son of Peleas saw right through her try and avoided the low-sniffing roundhouse easily, skipping in the other direction and slamming down the broad end of his sword right upon her right knee.

Damn, that hurt like Tartarus. She grinded her teeth together against it, and then she stroke back, aiming for the bared skin under his arm pit. And got lucky this time, because even as Achilles avoided her strike, his foot connected with the body of a fallen countryman of his, which halted him slightly, and she could draw blood, however superficial that cut became.

That seemed to trigger him even more, like a shark under water, and he was speeding towards her with so much strength and speed, that it was all Penthesileia could do to ward him off. However she did that with splendor, and when he exposed his other arm-pit, she was there again, making an even deeper wound this time.

Achilles took two quick steps back and Penthesileia got a chance to draw breath and compose herself slightly before she became the one to initiate the next attack, trusting her lighter persona and fleet movement this time rather than strength, dancing upon her feet, circling the big Greek as if he was a maypole and she was celebrating maiden with a merry red ribbon. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that the brawl around them had seized and that their duel had gathered quite an audience. Everyone wanted to see this new addition to the game, this fast lady of the East, who was trying her luck against the greatest of the Greek heroes.

Now she became the one who held the battle in her hand, who brought Achilles on retreat, she saw him take first one then two steps back, turning to follow her circling movement, and just as he seemed to have caught her movement, she turned and sped in the other direction, almost catching him off balance. She blinked against the sweat forming upon her brows and smiling slightly, at the same time reminding herself to not get too cocky, or it might cost her. Achilles was not going to be in defensive mode forever, no matter that he was bleeding from two wounds now.

No, his counter-attack came quicker than she expected, he turned with her and lashed out, quite a bit lower then she had expected, and as his long arm struck out, he was cutting a sharp gash across her leg, reducing her lead when it came to blood wounds. Then, as she skipped backwards, he had expected that move too, after all it was more of a reflex than an actual strategy. So he followed through and cut again, wounding her second leg in almost the same manner. Damn! Now they were both bleeding, still they kept on fighting, none of them slowing down, none of them showing how much it hurt.

Stepping in close to her, his sword caught hers and twisted it around in an eternity-figure, and she gritted her teeth against the pain in her ankle, as her clammy hand fought to keep hold on the hilt.  
"I heard you lack one tit," Achilles teased her. Oh, that was old. That darn Greek derision of her people, she was so over it after just a few weeks here.  
"And I," she panted, "heard that your folks tried to hide you from the drafters by dressing you up as a real girlie girl in garlands and bobbinet!"

His response to that became a fierce growl, apparently she had hit a soft spot. Now he pushed her across her chest causing her to almost loose her balance. Cursing under her breath, Penthesileia took a small step back and then she stepped to the right and initiated a new attack, no use waiting here. However, the Greek's anger seemed to have fueled him in some odd way, because he came at her if possible even more forcefully this time, and managed to wound her in her left ankle, and doing it so hard that she had to throw away her shield. Instead she grasped a small dagger, and with that one clasped hard in her hand, she stepped in and lashed out in an uppercut. However Achilles was too fast and he hit her arm so it flew widely and harmlessly away instead. And then he stroke back and hit her across her temple, not seeming to bother with the fact that his bare knuckles hit her helmet.

The impact made her see stars and comets, and she slid to the left by the forceful stroke, almost not getting her sword up in time to parry his attack. Spinning around, she elbowed him in the guts and avoided his hand, which tried to catch her, but ended up clutching air instead and she turned quickly, backhanding across his chest, but only catching bronze. She knew she had to go for the sides, where he was exposed and vulnerable, and at the same time present such a miniscule target as possible. Her smaller form was her best advantage here.

However, she was beginning to tire, and as they continued their fencing, she felt her muscles beginning to burn and her breathing becoming laboured. However, her adversary appeared almost as fast as before, not bothering with the new wound she had inflicted upon his left flank. Instead he seemed to have noticed her condition and was obviously working on tiring her even more, skipping to and from and trying to fool her. She countered most of his lashes, but suddenly he came in from an odd direction and kicked out with his right leg. Taking the chance, her arm fell down and she watched her sword bite into his loin. However, he landed on the left foot and took her completely by surprise.

The next moment, she felt cold steel slid in beneath her ribs, the piercing pain unbearable. Now she couldn't hold back her cry out in agony when she felt her hot blood gush out of the wound, as Achilles twisted the blade around twice and made the wound even deeper and more lethal. Erratically, Penthesileia stumbled backwards, and then she miss-stepped and almost fell backwards. Achilles didn't wait for her to regain what was left of her powers, but was over her, taking hold of her right shoulder and once more, spinning her around, and this time he forced his blade into her, from the right side this time. And with a grunt, that was all she managed, Penthesileia saw the sand coming rushing towards her. The next moment she landed hard, and rolled over to her back. The big Greek was over her, and she was fully convinced that he would strike her dead by now.

Instead, he grabbed and pulled her helmet off her, she felt the neck leather snap against her cheek, tearing it off its hinges. Yet, she didn't feel pain, she was beyond that now, instead she experienced how the world was beginning to fade, to shrink to a small hole where Achilles standing over her was the only thing she discerned.

Would this be the last thing she would see in her life? The Greek who's faith she had become tied so closely together with? So involuntarily, when she had accidently killed Hippolyte.

He was saying something, although she didn't hear. Then he leaned forward, almost whispering into her ears.  
"You must have been his daughter, you fought like him at least. What a pity that such beauty has to die."

Then he was gone, and she closed her eyes, turned her cheek and felt how the blood in the sand stained her cheek. Awaited death.

0000000000

Death must be strange, was the first thing she thought. So white. She realized her eyes was open again, and she was sitting up, with her legs stretched out, her arms bent back and resting on the palms of her finger spread hands in the sand. Achilles was there, however the big man had turned his back upon her, and he was holding her blue-crested helmet in his hand as a trophy. But the strangest thing was that he didn't move. He had stopped his walk entirely, and not even the unkempt, blond locks falling out from under his helmet were moving.

Surprised, Penthesileia turned around, regarding all the other people around her, seeing a few of her sisters in arms mingling with the Trojan forces and opposite of them quite a few Greeks, stretching their arms up in the air in victorious gestures. But neither were they moving. Greeks as well as Trojans, Amazons and what else seen on that battlefield were all frozen in their movements, as if time had stopped.

Had it?

Why was she sitting up?

And why wasn't a sound heard?

To be true, Penthesileia had no idea what was going on. Shouldn't she be on her way down under by now? On her way to the ferry of Charon? Or did she have to wait for the other Amazons to retrieve her body and burn it before that? Truth is, she didn't know. She had never bothered that much with death. Not as an experience in itself at least, and what might really happen afterwards. Battle kills she knew all about, including what it felt like now. But not how a death was actually played out. If you went directly to the kingdom of Hades, or if you had to wait until your Earthly form was taken care of, before you could do that.

"Well I guess I'm going to find out soon," she said to herself, and it felt odd to hear her voice. It sounded different. Deeper, as if she was under water. At the same time, she was astonished that she was hearing herself at all, especially since the whole world around her had grown completely silent.

But it was what she heard next, that startled her even more.

"Penthesileia," a voice spoke into her ear. A melodic, female voice. "Daughter of Ares, you need to listen to me now. And listen carefully."


	3. The first day of the rest of her life

**The first day of the rest of her life**

"Penthesileia," a voice spoke into her ear. A melodic, female voice. "Daughter of Ares, you need to listen to me now. And listen carefully. Because what I intend to tell you at this moment is important."

"Say what? Who?" The Amazon turned around, trying to discern who had spoken, the sand rasping beneath her palms and mingling with a sticky sensation of what must be blood. Her blood.  
"Penthesileia, I'm Orianthe. You cannot see me now, but you have to listen with judgment to what I'm going to tell you, because you have an important decision to make, perhaps the most important decision in your life."  
"But my life is over now, right?" she blurted out, not knowing what else to say.  
"Only if you want it to be."

"What do you mean?"  
"That Achilles, son of Tethys have wounded you lethally, but you are not dead yet," this invisible Orianthe told. "You still have a few moments of mortal life left. One or two heartbeats, before your mortal body stops coping with the blood loss and dies. However your attention span has been speed up plentifolds, so it almost appears to you as if time has stopped, which you might notice." Penthesileia could only nod in understanding and the strange, deep contralto went on. "This is to make it possible for you to decide if you want to remain mortal, and continue through the circle of death and life. To actually die her and now, to enter the Hades and the Asphodel to sample the water of Lethe, to forget and to be reborn into a new life with new possibilities. That is one way you can take, from this crossroad where you are now."

"And the other?"  
"That is to embrace immortality, the immortality which is your genetic birth right because of your heritage as a daughter of the War God Ares."  
"So it was true?"  
"Ares being your father? Of course!" Orianthe said.  
"I thought it was just stupidities. My mother's pathetic tries at making herself more important than she really was."  
"It was never stupidities, and your mother was never pathetic. Now, Penthesileia, I'm afraid you have to make your decision quickly. More than half your time has passed and you have to decide which way to go."

She almost laughed out loud at that.  
"How hard can it be? I don't want to die. I mean really, who does, when push comes to show? The honorable death at the battlefield, that's just more pretentious bullshit! So bring it on, this mortality."

0000000000000000000

Perhaps I'll regret this later, Penthesileia thought to herself where she stood outside the impressive castle, which was situated high up at the edge of a steep-walled rock. The castle was dark and forlorn, brooding like an ancient beast in the heavy rainfall. It was surrounded on three sides by the unruly ocean and on the fourth side, ran a narrow and meandering road between stumpy shrub-like pines and up to a heavy wooden drawbridge, let down to admit her in, the portcullis open on the other side of the bridge.

Pulling her cloak closer around her neck against the chilly rain, the deificated Amazon wondered slightly how she could have been bothered with the heat in Ilium. Now, there was nothing she wanted more than to get a bit warmer. Walking up to the castle, she was determined to not let her nerves shown. Immortality! When the goddess Orianthe had presented her the alternative on the battlefield it had seemed like such an easy choice. Life over death, goddesshood over a miserable end in the sand. And a chance to really meet the father she earlier didn't believe existed, other than in her mother's eccentric fantasies.

Now, it seemed more complicated, Penthesileia thought as she crossed that iron-enhanced wooden bridge, which was croaking slightly as she walked across it, swaying a bit in the wind. No matter that she now knew she was invulnerable, she still felt that nauseating vertigo while looking down at the foaming waves killing themselves against the jagged black rocks far beneath the drawbridge.

She hadn't really known what to expect, when Orianthe had shown herself and taken Penthesileia's hand, telling her to not look back. To bother neither with the triumphing Achilles, nor with her devastated sisters in arms, but to leave the battlefield immediately. The battlefield which was beginning to return to normal programming while they left it behind, the suspense of the duel giving room to the regular slaughter and madness once more. Penthesileia had to gather all her strength to not wriggle free from the goddess' firm grip and return to help those who were her friends. That was perhaps the hardest part with turning immortal, she could not involve herself in her old life again, hardly watch it from a distance. She had received firm orders to leave the Trojan war behind.

So while the war went on, and her old life begun to more and more lose its relevance, she was sent here, to the other end of the world, to train with a god named Erebus. He was a man who had volunteered into turning her into a divine fighter rather than just a mortal ditto. Penthesileia had wanted to know about Ares, but Orianthe had told her that the God of War was very much engaged in the Trojan War, so it would not be a very good idea to bring her to him right now. He could, Orianthe had feared, get a stupid idea of trying to recruit his Amazon daughter for his case. Something that would be dangerous. It was always a risk with new immortals involving themselves in their old life. Immortals, who were not yet used to their divine powers and who were filled to the brim with emotions connected to the lives they had left behind. It hadn't matter how much Penthesileia had sworn she would never seek out Achilles for either revenge or to just to scare the crap out of him, it hadn't matter that she had promised to not in any way contact her old Amazon sisters, Orianthe had been relentless. Penthesileia was to be removed from the Troy area, and that was a final.

Therefore, Penthesileia had come here, and was facing – she had no idea what to be true. Orianthe hadn't been able to give her that much information about this god Erebus, other than that he was very old, older than Zeus himself in fact and that he was the ex-husband to an Olympian goddess called Nyx, but living alone these days, in this spooky castle. Orianthe couldn't enlighten Penthesileia even the tiniest bit about this god's temper and mind. Nothing about how he thought and just why he had volunteered to take the young goddess under his wings. If he expected her to warm his bed in return for some martial arts training, he'd have another thought coming.

She might be just 28 years old and her experiences of males were limited to say the least. Still, she was not going to whore herself to some stranger god, then she's rather go somewhere else, find something else to do with her suddenly so long life.

Taking the last few steps, the Amazon crossed the threshold to the aged castle, walked through a vaulted underpass and out in a courtyard, where, to her surprise quite a lot of greenery was flourishing. And no matter that the rain had been lashing down in relentless torrents from the sky just seconds ago, now the sun was actually shining, glittering in a pound and reflecting off the water cascades of a fountain, painting undulating shadows on the ground as the trees moved slightly in a wind which was much more restrained than the gale outside. Fragrances of roses and tulips filled the air and the chirping of birds was heard mixing with the faint tingling of wind chimes. This place was – beautiful, Penthesileia had to admit. Now, how about its owner, was he waiting in a reception hall or an office somewhere? Because it couldn't be the young man with the blond hair tied back in a ponytail, who came to receive her, right? Because this man sure didn't look anything like a warrior, divine or otherwise.

No, he bowed slightly, while introducing himself.  
"Good afternoon, Penthesileia of the Amazons, daughter of Great Ares and Lady Otrera! I'm Gandiar, the majordomo and caretaker of Enigma Castle. And Lord Erebus' right hand. I'm here to take care of you right at the moment. The Lord Erebus will wish to see you in his office, but I take it you want to see your rooms first, and to freshen up. Have a change of clothes."  
"Thank you, Gandiar," she bowed back at the handsome man, realizing first now that he must be way older than he first had appeared. Because in spite of his unlined face and fit, however slender body, there was something mellow and gentleman-like over his behaviour and there glittered intelligent and mirthful look in his pale blue eyes, a look of the kind only seen in very old and wise people otherwise. Like with her own grandmother Antiopa who had lost a leg in a battle and since then had been home-bound and thus reached a very high age for an Amazon fighter.

"Yes, I would very much like to freshen up," she said and thought with a shiver about her wet and dirty clothes, some blood from the battle still lingering, even if she had taken off her arms and thus rid herself of most of what had stained her earlier. "However I fear I haven't any exchange of clothes handy. I would have to be received by your Lord in what I am standing in."  
"Oh, don't worry about that," Gandiar smiled at her, his unnaturally white robes bellowing slightly in the mild wind, showing off more of that slender body, which actually had a certain effect upon her. "That has been taken care of, you will surely find something that appeals to you in your closet." he nodded his head in a general upwards direction. "Shall we go?"

Mutely, she nodded her head, not really knowing what to say. Had they acquired clothes for her? When? And how? And most of all, how would these fit? They couldn't possibly have access to her measurements, could they? And she was far from an ordinary woman, not with her fit warrior's body.  
"It's a lovely garden you have here," she said after a moment of hesitation. After all she had to have something to say, right?  
"Thank you, milady," the old-young man said. "It's courtesy of a few of Lord Erebus' daughters who come for visits now and then, however for the moments none of them are here."

Then he guided her across the flowering garden, and it was indeed roses on some of the bushes as well as other flowers which she recognized but couldn't name. After all botany had never been one of her major subjects. After walking to the other side or the courtyard they arrived at a low flight of stairs, and on top of that one were two huge and ornate double doors in oak, their brass handlers shining in the light of the sun. Pushing up one of these doors, Gandiar held it open for Penthesileia and showed her into a hallway where a pair of broad twin staircases in white marble spread like seagull wings upwards to a first and then a second landing and where strange, green fires flamed from wall mounted burners.

Gandiar guided Penthesileia up to the second floor and then further up to the third. Here she was shown the way through a long corridor with a vaulted ceiling and closed doors on each side, a thick red-brown carpet muting their footfalls and with the white-painted walls lined with more of those torches. Finally they reached the second last door, where the majordomo stopped and produced a long and heavy key, which he used to open up the door, admitting her inside.

Stopping at the threshold, Penthesileia found herself having a hard time taking in what she was seeing. The sumptuous room was large, twice as large as a regular Amazon cottage to be true and opulently furnished with seats and sofas covered with comfy looking and brightly coloured mattresses and pillows. There was also a large working desk and what appeared to be a meal table with several chairs around. Oriental carpets covered the floors and from the x-shaped vault ceiling hung a large chandelier of wrought brass. To her right was a door opening, with the door slightly ajar, displaying a bed chamber with what appeared to be a huge four-poster canopy bed. But the most impressive thing was the windows. Huge curtains were drawn to the sides to display large, pointed windows, fitted with huge plates of glass!

Glass windows were something she had heard about being used in kings' palaces, but she had never expected to see it for real. Let along staying in a room with those. Then again, this was the world of the gods, and she was certain there were a lot more even stranger things for her to get used to.

"These are your rooms, Lady Penthesileia," Gandiar said as he handed her the key. "The bathroom is beyond the bedroom, I believe Tame or Inissi is there preparing your bath as we speak."  
"Who?" she asked in confusion.  
"Your nymph maidservants. They have been assigned to you, to take care of every need you might have during your stay here. You'll also find a few set of clothes in the lockers of the bedroom as well as weaponry, toiletries, writing tools and all else you might have need for."

"Thank you," she replied while taking hold on the key, feeling the cold sleekness of iron against her palm while keeping it in her hand, trying to figure out how to not lose it. As an Amazon, she was not used to keys. Her people never locked their cottages. Then there was the slight embarrassment with her illiteracy. Gandiar had talked about writing tools as if it was the most natural thing in the world that everyone knew how to read and to write. How could she tell that these were skills she had never acquired? That they were proficiency which usefulness was not taken for granted by an Amazon. Only those bothering with business and book keeping knew how to read and to write in the land Penthesileia came from.

"And by the way," Gandiar went on, "don't trouble yourself with locking the door to your suite, there's nothing to worry about here. Besides Lord Erebus, the only permanent inhabitant of the castle is the Lord's sister Talsi, and she wouldn't bother. She spends most of her time either with the horses or with her music. Or perhaps in the library reading. You'll find Talsi, how should I say, nice, but not really interested in your trade. War has never fascinated her the slightest."  
"And – Lord Erebus?" Penthesileia asked.  
"He'll expect you down in his office as soon as you're bathed and ready. But don't stress for his sake. He knows when people need to take their time."

Then he shifted his attention and Penthesileia turned her head in the direction of his darting eyes, seeing two petite, young women coming through the door, one blonde and one brunette. When they spotted Gandiar and Penthesileia, they were curtsying as their faces lit up in polite smiles.  
"Mr. Gandiar, Lady..." one of them hesitated and Gandiar filled in the Amazon's name. Then he introduced Penthesileia to Tame, the blonde one and Inissi, the brunette. "Anything you need, you just ask them and they'll provide."

My old life back, she felt herself thinking, because no matter that it was now irrevocably forfeit, she felt as if she could kill for just a moment of normalcy right now. Everything was happening a bit too fast for her. But she just smiled at the two nymph servants and thanked them for being around.  
"I'll leave you to your bath now, milady," Gandiar said with a gentle smile, but as he started to leave, she called for his attention again.  
"When I'm done, how do I find Lord Erebus?"  
"That I trust Inissi or Tame to help you with," came Gandiar's answer.

0000000000000000000

About an hour later, the Amazon found herself in a waste office, facing a handsome and muscular young man with a mop of black hair over dark, slightly angular eyes in a narrow, olive-skinned face. No, 'young' was not what he was, this god called Erebus. Older than Zeus, had Gandiar said. Once again, looks were deceiving her. Once again, she found herself looking into age-old eyes, which appeared so out of place in the face of what looked like a man in the prime of his age.  
"Penthesileia, daughter of Ares, welcome to Enigma castle," the old god said in an echo of his majordomo from earlier. "I take it you're bristling with questions now, and I'll do my best to answer them and to help you acquaintance yourself with your new, divine life."

"Thank you, milord," she said as she took his offered hands.  
"And skip that 'Lord' thing, will you!" Erebus said. "We are to work and study together and then all those titles are a bit awkward. We're not at Olympos here, and I've never been a fan of protocol anyway."  
"I'll remember that, Erebus," she smiled, she found that she liked this man, or at least the first impression of him. And first impressions often lasted, that was something she had learned earlier on in life. "May I ask my first question to you already now?"

"Sure, go ahead," Erebus offered.  
"Yes, how come you chose to take me under your wings? I asked Orianthe already when she brought me here, but she didn't know, or wouldn't tell."  
"Oh that," Erebus grinned, as he held out his hand to a low table and a few chairs. "That's an easy one. I wanted something to do and some company. The life of a god can be a rather boring one, if you don't find a way to fill it with useful tasks. And taking a chance to train a young goddess is one of those. Now, let's sit down for a while. Dinner will be served at sunset down in the grand hall, but before that, you and I have about two hours just for talking. And your first and undoubtedly raw battery of questions. Tomorrow first, we'll begin your training in earnest."  
"I look forward to that," Penthesileia admitted, finding it being very true.


	4. Leia, I am your father

**Leia, I am your father**

_A/N A tribute to Star Wars which I couldn't pass on..._

Olympos had taken her breath away, there was no denying that. Penthesileia might have been impressed with Erebus' Enigma castle when she had come there a bit more than two years ago. However, nothing could have prepared her for this illustrious place. Olympos was so much more than just a few palaces on a mountaintop. It was a complete society, consisting of a small town or a large village, depending on how you saw it, located in the middle of the cropped-off mountaintop. The town encircled parts of a large lake and surrounding it in turn were flourishing meadows and small woods. There were waterfalls streaming down the hillsides and more ponds on the way down. And most of all there were gods.

Up until now, Penthesileia had lived with Erebus and his sister Talsi and the majordomo Gandiar and sometimes Erebus' children and other relatives had come visiting. The Amazon turned goddess had learned how to become a divine fighter and protector and she had learned what being a goddess was all about. Half a year after arriving at Erebus' place, she had also admitted that she couldn't read and write, and thus Talsi had taken upon her to teach the younger goddess that.

The last six months Penthesileia had been travelling the world, seeing more than she had during all her earlier years taken together. Upon realizing the grandness of the world, her little trip from the Amazon lands to Ilium, which had once appeared so impressive, seemed now like just a step of an ant. For a goddess who had been to India and to Briton, from Ethiopia to Thule, the perspectives had become quite different.

Now, with the end of the war in Troy, old alliances had broken apart and gods from all over the place were trying for new positions and areas of interest. So for the first time in years, the great annual ball at Olympos was attracting more than just a few gods with too much time on their hands. Now, everyone was going to Olympos, to ensure they didn't lost their station when the world was changing. Yet, the thirty year old Penthesileia was a goddess without locus, so she had nothing to lose. And everything to win. So urged on by Erebus, she had travelled to the renowned mountaintop, and found herself gawking at the marvelous people of this place.

This was quite a bit more than a row of glass windows or a vast armory and pure-bred horses. It was the very heart of the divine world, and as such it was brimming with deities, doing everything to be seen, heard and to make an impression of the lasting kind. Here, Penthesileia was a nobody, and it felt strangely fine, because it meant that she could hang back and observe. To learn a few useful things before she involved herself for real. So she had let herself be swept away in awe by the impressive and opulent architecture which was the Palace of Zeus. The structure was located at the highest point of the mountaintop, and lit with thousands and thousands of multi-coloured flames of divine light, which made it look like it was floating in the velvet of the night, reflecting itself in the large and still pool in front of it.

Penthesileia crossed the outer courtyard, beholding the most impressive fountain one could imagine, also lit, even from under the water by an profusion of light. A fountain surrounded by several smaller ones, lifted on glass pedestals, which in turn were surrounded by partly gilded marble statues set with precious stones. A spectacular work of art, which she just had to stop and admire, before she urged herself on, through those open doors made out of something outlandish with looked like transparent gold, and further on inside an entrance hall paling everything she had seen earlier. It was immense and ornate in a refined and moderate way; there was something delicate yet robust over the architecture, which was dominated by the whitest of marble melded together with more of that transparent gold material. Lost for words, the Amazon strode up marble stairs with gilded railings and into a ballroom which was so grand that it appeared as if it could have swallowed the complete Enigma castle.

The gigantic hall had no ceiling but raised up through several floorings with walkways and was open to the starry sky. Floating in the air were several chandeliers lit with colourful divine light and set with lines of sparkling crystal beads. On the opposite end of the grand room was a huge waterfall, cascading down a wall made of mirror glass and adorned with even more lamps and flames of divine light, crystal prisms and climbing greenery.

Still the hall itself had nothing against the people gathered in it, the gods themselves. The people here weren't just any gods, but the most important and remarkable gods of the whole world. There were the ones who made out the Olympian Dodekatheon, the Council of Twelve, and then all the more or less noteworthy ones in the long tail of hang-arounds. And so many others, arrived in from all over the world. Gods and goddesses doing all and everything to outshine the one next to them, when it came to clothes, hairs, jewelry and other adornments. Gods and goddesses moving and plotting for positions and trying to raise their own importance in so many ways.

Therefore these star-like beings were politicking with the very same intensity as the warriors had been fighting in the sand outside Troy. Penthesileia felt it in the air; it was sparkling with divine powers, sharp minds cutting like knives trough reality to unfold the secrets others were trying to protect. Slick operators slithering like eels towards their objectives, others stumbling ahead not bothering who they might trample. It was a conceivably precarious place, even for the one who was not actively partaking in the political playoffs, and the Amazon hoped she could protect herself from dangers yet unknown.

Yes, the young goddess soon understood that what she was seeing here was a battlefield. No matter that the duels were not being fought with swords and javelins, but with words and gestures, with risen brows and turned heels, they were in their own way just as fervent and lethal as the slaughter had been down in the real war. If you 'died' here, then you could just pack your things and be gone. To perhaps come back later with a better arsenal, and hope for another chance, in this perilous world of the gods. Meanwhile, the object you fought for would be lost to another god or goddess, who might take it and do what they wanted with it instead.

Trying to remain unnoticed a bit longer, Penthesileia slipped to the left side, and spied the gathered crowds, trying to see if she could recognize any of the gods. When Erebus had taught her to use the sight pool, he had shown her upon the most important of their ilk, gods like Poseidon, Athena, Hermes, Apollo, Aphrodite. Not to mention Zeus himself. And his son Ares. Her father. But try as she might, she had not spotted any remarkable resemblance to herself in him. Tonight Penthesileia blessed that, because it meant that nobody would recognize her before she wanted it to happen. Or so she hoped, knowing that gods had strange and mighty resources, of which she had only learned about a few so far.

There were Apollo and his twin sister Artemis, talking to a trio of gods Penthesileia didn't recognize. Over to the other side, almost by the waterfall, she spotted someone who she thought might be Demeter and a bit away was a lady with flying, blond hair who was obviously Aphrodite. After that she saw that most people were gravitating to a place a little bit to the right of the very centre of the room. There, in the middle of the thong, she could feel the presence of the great Zeus himself and his Queen Hera, even if she didn't see any of them. But no Ares. Wasn't he here today, was he out there somewhere fighting another war? That made her feel oddly disappointed, even if she wasn't really sure she was prepared to meet with the God of War. After all what was she really going to say to him?

No, first of all, she was going to pay Great Zeus her respect. There was no reason postponing that encounter, when she had finally come here to Olympos. And since Erebus had chosen against going in the last minute, there was nobody introducing her, so she had to do that all by herself.

This was almost scarier than when she had gone up against Achilles, she thought. No, make that even more scary. When she had faced Achilles, she had known she was going to die – or at least that had been her certain thought back then. An inevitable faith she had prepared for and finally became as primed for as one can possibly become. Including for the pain and the horror it would bring. Because no matter how petrifying the concept had seemed, it had been a known one, something she had understood and had been able to evaluate. While she had no idea of what to expect when facing the very King of the Gods. She had no known experiences from earlier in her life to match this with. Meeting Erebus had been like facing a wise teacher to be, someone who had welcomed her, and no matter that the divine life back then had been all new and all strange, she had gone to meet him knowing that he was expecting her and that he knew enough of her to receive her as the one she was.

But what would lord Zeus say to this nobody Amazon who had come here in hope of understanding a bit more of the new world she was now living in? And perhaps meeting the God of War who had sired her? She didn't have a clue, and that scared her. Still, she braved herself through the gathering of gods, noting with a slight surprise that there were quite a few checking her out. Was that because she was a new face or was it her chose of dress? Early on, Penthesileia had disregarded the elaborated peploses of the divine ladies, and instead settled for a short chiton in a silvery material which hugged to her body in a complimentary form, showing off the strong body of a warrior maiden. That outfit was chosen to hint at her assumed independence. To show that she was able to fight for herself, should that be necessary. At the same time she displayed her complete disinterest in the maneuvering most people here were involved in. She was not one playing their game, and as such she was no threat to them.

A few women stepped to the side, goddesses with their voices ringing with laughter, their sparkling dresses ranging from turquoise to primary blue. One of them she recognized as Selene, the oldest among the deities of the Moon Order, those gods and goddesses who managed the weather during the night. For a fleeting moment their eyes met, and Penthesileia thought she recognized curiosity in the silver blue of the platinum blonde goddess' eyes.

And there he was. Zeus. King of the gods. Standing together with Hera and talking to another couple, a dark skinned god with red robes and an elaborated and heavy-looking golden headdress and a woman on his arm, who was just as dark skinned but a bit more moderately dressed. However Penthesileia hardly saw those or the other deities waiting in the informal line, she was preoccupied with regarding the God of Thunder. He had a way of carrying himself which was imposing and relaxed at the same time. As if he knew he had no need for showing off. He could stand there with his Queen on his arm and listen to the other god's elaborated chatter and return some interesting replies before dismissing him and his entourage to let the next ones in. They were an uneasy-looking one-eyed man and a plump redhead woman who looked like a cross between Penthesileia's old friend Polemousa and Briseis, a war booty woman of Achilles, whom he later had to turn over to Agamemnon.

Those, Penthesileia knew, were Odin and Friga, gods of the Norse, living somewhere up in the Ural Mountains. And it was obvious it was the latter who was the number one in that pantheon. Friga did all the talking, she had an animated body language and a self-assured way of carrying herself which spoke of the same no-nonsense attitude Penthesileia remembered from her amazon tribe woman, and she suddenly felt home-sick for her old life. Did this Friga hail from the Amazons, or did she just have the same assertiveness?

After the Norse duo came some talkative, aquatic gods and then some other dark skinned ones, one of them holding on to a blue helmet in the shape of an elephant head. Then, suddenly Penthesileia found that it was her turn to speak to the King. Gathering courage, she addressed him and Hera the way she had heard the rest of the people doing. And while she wasn't plucky like Friga, she didn't let politeness, protocol – or nerves get in the way of the fact that she was not here to scrape her feet or play politics, just to pay her new ruler due respect.

"Penthesileia," Zeus echoed her name, as she bowed in front of him and Hera. "Pleased to meet you, young lady! Orianthe told me about you a while back. Said you were staying with Lord Erebus. He did not come with you here today?"  
"No, he was – slightly held up. He sends his regards."  
"Give the same ones back then," Hera replied and Penthesileia faced the Queen, took in her features for real. Just as they said, she was exceedingly beautiful, probably the most radiant woman Penthesileia had ever seen and her saturated, darker colours were a striking divergence to the fair, sapphire eyed King, as if these two were made to contrast each other.

"Will do, my Queen," the Amazon smiled and apparently the god to the right of her had interpreted Hera's words as a dismissal, because he took a step ahead, to address the royal couple. But as he did, Hera turned her torso ever so slightly, a peacock feathered fan snapping out and almost hitting the new arrival, as it framed up in front of her. With a surprised, almost angered expression the slender, raven-haired god took a step to the right before he composed himself, doing his best to not show that he had been cornered out.

Feeling a concerned, almost frightful tick across her brow, Penthesileia gazed into the chestnut eyes of the Queen.  
"You are one of the daughters of our Ares," Hera stated as a matter of fact. "One of the brave and independent Amazons."  
"That is true, my Queen," Penthesileia replied, feeling her troth starting to dry up.  
"How come you chose this life?" Hera's eyes were now genuinely curious, and that made Penthesileia feel quite a bit better. The royal couple was not content with small talking with her but wanted to know a bit about her for real.

"Honestly, it was a quick decision," Penthesileia admitted. "Perhaps too quick. Truthfully spoken, I was afraid to die. That might sound strange, most people believe that my kind do not fear death. Which might be true on an abstract level. But there I was with a sword cut through my belly and it suddenly became very real. And I became very afraid. And then SHE came. Orianthe. Daughter of Hermes, making her my cousin, which I learned later. She offered me a chance to opt out. A chance I took."

"Was it the right choice?" Zeus asked, and Penthesileia sensed more than saw that others had stopped to listen to their exchange.  
"Milord, the first weeks I doubted it, almost regretted it," she truthfully replied. "But not anymore. I've seen so many amazing things over those two years since I 'died' down there in Ilium. I've learned so much. However I feel that with every new thing I learn there are two more I desire to master. I never thought life was so grand, the world was so great. Therefore I am delightful for this opportunity."

"Very well spoken, Penthesileia," Zeus said, and it was not just flatter. "I've take it you have yet to meet your father though."  
"Ares," again she felt her troth contract. "I believe he's not here. At least I have not seen him.  
"He is due a while later," Hera replied. "After the dinner. He is very busy with a new settlement in Latium. But rest assure, granddaughter, I will make him find you."  
"Thank you!" Penthesileia couldn't help beam, moved by the sudden warmness in the voice of the Queen.

O0O0O

She was beginning to feel fatigued. All those people, all those strange faces, new names, unexpected conversations. The lavish dinner, the dance and the music. The exotic drinks. The lights and the shadows, the warmth in the room, everything was slowly beginning to get to her, unused as she was to such an event. In her heart and soul, Penthesileia was still an Amazon. She was an outdoors woman, she was used to dress utilitarian (although she had to admit there was something very utilitarian to the finery of all these gods. These were clothes to show-off in, arms to protect them against their insecurities) and she was used to the harsh and direct sound of clashing arms rather than to the complicated stratagems of the oral skirmishes. She recognized the meekly shrouded insults and understood that they could stab the opponent as bad as any sword, that the gossip worked like maneuvers to undermine enemies as well as strengthen your own position. Naturally she knew that she has to learn the rules and the martial arts of this kind of battle as well.

Moving counter-clockwise through the grand hall, she had seen more than a dozen people fall on this battle field, defeated as utterly as she had been back in Ilium, when Achilles had put his sword through her belly. In a way these fatalities must hurt worse, because you got to hear the talk afterwards. And while in a war, a fallen hero got paid some respect, those who lost here faced nothing but mockery. She had seen that with the raven haired man who Hera had cut out. He was called Eridanus. Then there were some other faces and names as well, deities who had bit the rug – figuratively speaking of course.

And she, Penthesileia the Amazon, she had used a skill she had possessed already as a warrior maiden and refined even more as a goddess. She slipped through the crowds, fast and agile. Observing and taking note, while not letting herself be noticed more than necessary. People complemented her on her dress, and she found that Artemis wore something similar. Artemis, whom she had briefly spoken to, as well as Apollo, Hermes, Athena and Hestia. She spent a little longer with Dionysos and a few of his hang-arounds, they had been drunk and merry and she warmed oddly to their garrulous posse. But since Penthesileia had never liked alcohol that much, she had soon felt that this wasn't her club, and moved on.

Next thing she encountered some other people from half way across the world, only to quickly back out, because they were nothing but rude, annoyed with her way of displaying her body. As if that was any of their problem. She really didn't want to draw attention to herself with some kind of brawl, but she couldn't resist pointing out that the most loud mouthed of those swarthy gods wasn't very clad either and that his hairy upper body was not exactly handsome to look at. That made the man even more fervent and she almost expected him to pull that blade he carried by his side. Quickly she recollected what Erebus had taught her about defending herself using nothing but her hands and feet. That made her feel quite assured that she could handle this uncouth man who was obviously the leader of this strangely uniform all-male group.

But nothing like that was needed, because the stranger didn't challenge her, only told her to watch her mouth, saying something about them being somewhere else than in the halls of Zeus, he would've taught her a lesson. Was that a way to throw down the gauntlet? Penthesileia wasn't sure and she didn't want to learn, because no matter that she felt quite assured that she could defeat this braggart, she was not here to draw any attention. So she only replied something about not having any use for lessons from barbarians before leaving these men to their own devices.

It was then the music and the dancing started. The most lovely of music, performed not unexpectedly by Apollo himself and his group of muses. Nine women of incredible talents. Penthesileia had heard about them, but this was the first time she got to listen to them for real. And they sure were mesmerizing. For the first time ever did she regret that she didn't know how to dance. However, she didn't despair that much over it, these days she knew she could take the time to learn. Instead she had been content with sitting down together with some others by a table close to the stage and just listen to the miracle sounds filling the air.

Gladly she let the delightful music carry her away. With half-closed eyes she lost herself in the beauty and excitement of the melodies, enjoyed the lyrics and felt her foot tap out the rhythms on the floor, never had she been so affected by music, never had she thought that tunes and melodies, rhythms and chords could have such an impact upon her. Back with the Amazons, music had mostly been a tool for picking up the mood and to enhance comradeship, a help to carry on with long marches and to cope after battle. There had also been the jeering derision songs about the enemies, more a psychological weapon than anything else.

At Erebus' place there had been Talsi's lyre. She had taken that one out in the evenings and played and sung some heartwretchingly sad songs. Still Talsi had nothing against Apollo and his music. Although he didn't do any sad songs tonight, Penthesileia felt certain that he could manage those as well.

Then suddenly there was someone poking her upon the shoulder, and she turned, facing a tall, brunette woman in a colourful dress and large, glittering hazel eyes set in a delicate, heart-shaped face.  
"Hi," the tall goddess said and Penthesileia turned to acknowledge her. "I'm Iris."  
"Hi Iris, I'm Penthesileia," the Amazon replied.  
"I know. Actually, I've got someone who wants to meet you, and who sent me to find you."  
"Who?" Penthesileia asked, hoping it wasn't that bare-chested idiot she had encountered earlier. But no, it was nothing like that.

"It's your father. Ares," Iris made a movement with her had in a backwards rightish direction. "He'd really like to meet you."  
"Now?" she asked, while a thousand of thoughts passed through her mind. Why now? Well, why not now, another voice was saying to her. He might not have cared earlier, however she couldn't deny that she was curious about the man who had sired her. She wanted to see him, at least to fit in one more piece into the complicated jigsaw puzzle which was her life these days. So she stood up from the stool and nodded to Iris. "All right, let's go then."

Iris smiled back, almost encouraging and the next moment Penthesileia found herself following the colourfully dressed woman across the large hall and out on a terrace, where a few people were sitting by a round table, drinking and talking, looking very much like they were all having a good time. As the two goddesses closed in on the table, a tall, brawny man stood up from his place. He was dark in colours, his hair almost black and worn in a ponytail down his back, and he had same chiseled handsomeness as Zeus. It was easy in fact to see that these men were related, if you disregarded the colours. Those came from the Queen Hera.

"Ares," Iris said and faced the tall man. "This is Penthesileia of the Amazons." At those words the face of the tall god lit up like a bonfire.  
"Lord Ares?" Penthesileia heard her own voice, it sounded strange for some reason.  
"Penthesileia," the god replied. "No need for formalities here! Leia, I'm your father!"


	5. Re-encounter

**Re-encounter**

Dawn was breaking, pink sunlight sneaking in trough narrow slits in the tent, like spears of light, waking her up as they tickled her eye-lids. Out there the sounds of the day had begun, horses were neighing, dogs barked and people walked to and from, talked, the rattling and clinking of their arms and the creaking of leather, heavy-shoed feet crunching against the gravel. There were also the smells, scents of newly baked bread mixed with the less pleasant reek of garbage and dirty dog.

Yawning, Penthesileia crawled out of the sleeping bag, swung her legs down on the cold and clammy, trampled ground and stood. Quickly she made it over to the commode, poured ice-cold water in the sink and splashed it in her face. For a moment she missed Hephaestos' plumbing, then she reminded herself, she was a warrior, she shouldn't spoil herself with such commodities. Besides, being here in the New Country by the river of Tiber, where things were really happening, was so much fun. Never a day like the other, hardly a dull moment. Not like Olympos, which in all its beauty had soon bored her to tears. There was only so much fun you could have with ever gossiping goddesses and nymphs and those la-la-la-la muses. Penthesileia had soon started to long for adventures which went beyond who was doing it with whom and what to wear for the evening gatherings. So coming to help defending the new settlement in the land of the Latium hadn't really been a hard decision.

Today her father Ares was returning from the campaign up north together with her brother Romulus and a few other people he had promised she would find interesting. Drying herself off with a rough rag, she wondered who these people could be. Father had sounded so secretive when they had been talking over the scrying bowl the other day, and there had been that glint in his dark eyes which she knew now meant mischief.

When the first nerves had untangled themselves, Penthesileia and Ares had found that they got along very well. They both enjoyed battle and adventures, the outdoors life and the martial arts. Penthesileia found she totally loved her father's absolutely mean humour. Jokes about brutal death, blood and gore, the most horrendous crimes and how to treat cowards and traitors, now that was something they both shared. Ares wasn't callous, however to the untrained soul he might appear like that, nonetheless he was just a man who always stood his ground and never took shit. And he absolutely refused to fit into some kind of template of political correctness. No, he was a god of war, he had his brutal side, there was no denying that. At the same time he had this debonair honour and noble charm which made her feel right at home with him. For the first time ever, Penthesileia felt a greater connection with a male which wasn't either about shallow sex or – as in Erebus' case a mentor/student role. Ares was family and he let her know that he admired and appreciated her and was delighted to meet this daughter of his for real and on an equal basis.

"I couldn't do it when you were still an Amazon, one out of many, dear," he had admitted to her that night at Olympos last year. "Because back then there was this chasm of difference between us, me an old god, you a mortal young woman. And I'd probably both scared and awed you, not the reactions I'm looking forward to from children of mine."  
"So what do you expect, Ares?" she had asked.  
"First of all, I expect – I'd hope you'd address me as father," she had spotted just the twinkle in his eyes then and in response she had blurted out some monosyllable which could've meant both 'aye' and 'what?'.

"Come on!" he had grinned at her, holding out his arms, and she had forced down the last piece of shyness and let him give her a hug which almost squeezed the air out of her lungs. Penthesileia in turn had to fight tears, she never expected that this meeting would move her that much!

After that it hadn't taken the god long to recruit his daughter into his small band of divine fighters who these days were concentrating upon the Greek colonies in the New World. So now she was staying here in the large camp of the almost 500 people who had followed Aphrodite's son Aeneas when he had left Troy at the very last moment before it fell. They had come here to start anew, to build up a new world, far away from the old enmity between the Greeks and the Trojans. Thus it felt like quite a peculiar twist of faith that she, a reluctant alley of the Trojans, had come here.

Not to mention that Helen was here! Helen, who had been the bad excuse for starting all that insanity which eventually had been the end of Troy. And if someone had asked Penthesileia, the lass wasn't really that beautiful. She looked too pale and fragile, her blue eyes held that daft 'come and save me'-look and now the years had started to add both kilos and wrinkles to a body which probably once had been fresh and sexy. However Helen still carried herself as if she was the very epitome of beauty and sensuality, as if she was trying to compete with Aphrodite herself. Probably you got that kind of Hubris when people had started a war over you.

To put it short, Helen annoyed the Amazon. That little bunny always made Penthesileia grit her teeth and she had more than once braced herself to not snap out something arrogant at that wimpish little Spartan defector. However Penthesileia knew she had nothing to gain from that. One day Helen was going to make a fool out of her all by herself, that was something the daughter of Ares could feel down in her bones. So she let Helen be for the time being.

Pushing those unwelcomed thoughts away, Penthesileia slipped out of the hoses and top she had been sleeping in and redressed in a red linen tunic, brown leather pants and a ditto vest, put a broad, studded leather belt around her narrow waist and tied a bandana around her dark hair before she went out to head nature's calling and then find that baked bread. And to find Caerus, he owed her for yesterday, she sure wanted to get in the ring with that thug again, show him that an Amazon was in fact able to stand her ground, no matter if the lad was another son of Zeus.

Three hours later, mission accomplished! She had had breakfast on bread, eggs and heated watered wine and then she had found Caerus, who had been training with some local deity called Laran. Of course Caerus had loved the idea of another battle with his Amazon niece. As soon as he had disarmed and defeated the redhead Laran, he was awaiting her advance. However this time Penthesileia had spotted a few weaknesses of his, weaknesses she made sure to take advantage of, and this time she had defeated her uncle, putting a stop to his cockiness. After that Caerus surprised her by not being late to change his attitude and show her due respect, to take her hand after the battle and thank her for a good game. Penthesileia appreciated that. Someone who could take a defeat well had always, in her eyes, been a notch better than all those brats who only could handle victories.

Speaking of victory...

Here they came, Ares and a large troupe of fighters, who had been securing the northern perimeter against those barbarian trouble makers up there. The war-clad Ares rode ahead on an enormous, black stallion with white socks and a white star upon its forehead and no matter that he could've flown down way faster than he had made it riding, his was the idea that a good general rode with his men.

There were three other immortals as well. Penthesileia recognized Romulus and the healer goddess Thrassa, a sister Penthesileia had only briefly gotten to know. Beside them there was that huge, blond man on the white horse, who first had been partly hidden by Romulus, but as the party came to a halt and started to dismount, she had recognized him – and almost cursed out loud as she made a double-take.

Achilles!

The Thessalian who had killed her – well sort of!

She had learned about his deification of course, Erebus had told her about it one morning over breakfast. Thus Penthesileia had known it was only a question of time before she would re-encounter her old foe. However she had hardly expected him to be here, riding with Ares.

0O0O0O*

"So we meet again!" his smirk was slightly infuriating, and just as with that sap Helen, Penthesileia had to rely on pure self-control to not reply with something arrogant.  
"You're surprised?" she asked instead, trying to sound sweet while regarding the son of Thetis. She didn't recall that much of his looks from their last encounter, save for his huge form. However this lithe, blond god was unexpectedly handsome and he carried himself in a self-assured way without being brash and his blue-green eyes were regarding her with curiosity and – oddly enough – admiration.  
"Not really," he answered, remarkably honest-sounding. "I could tell back then in Ilium, you weren't that found of dying. Then again, who is? Therefore I believe we who got a second chance should perhaps think that over and be prepared to leave old grudges behind us."

At those words he held out his hand at her, something which stunned her even more than if he would have tried to punch her in her face. That she could have managed all right, a block and an uppercut and then some of the other gods had probably pulled them apart. But now – he wanted to reconcile, and that held her astonished. Nevertheless, Penthesileia was a warrior and as such she had learned to think fast. Hesitating only for a blink of an eye, she reached out her own hand and took his, the very hand which had once churned a blade in her belly. There was no denying it felt strange.

"You knew I was here?" she asked as they shook hands, and she tried to disregard that there were several others who couldn't help checking her and Achilles out. Probably some of them were disappointed now, those who had expected some kind of brawl between the two of them. She felt an odd glee in letting them down on that.  
"I had my healthy suspicions," Achilles replied as he let go of her hand and looked her over. "My mother told me once that you had become deificated. I learned that just after my own ascension, I stayed with her for a while before I came here to join Ares. Last night, he said that there was someone in the camp who I really ought to meet. 'Again' he added, your father. Then it wasn't that hard putting together two and two. Can't say I recall you being so good looking, Amazon, then again you weren't a goddess back then, and I was more inclined to just regard you as an enemy. Someone to stab down and be rid of."

"And for me you were that destiny I couldn't avoid, no matter how dearly I desired it," she said. "I heard you got Hector as well."  
"That's true," he said, and oddly enough there was no pride in that confirmation, it sounded more like Achilles was tired of being reminded of it.  
"So is it rude of me to ask who finally did you in?" Penthesileia asked. There was a grain of sarcastic mirth in his voice when he answered her.  
"A nobody archer," he told. "A boy on the wall of Troy, who got lucky with one of his poisonous arrows. It hit me right where there was a slit between my leg armor and my shoe." He lifted his left foot and put his index finger at a point right where that large tendon ran. "Downed me like a tree trunk in a storm. Then I met that lady Orianthe. Daughter of Hermes, I guess you've met her as well."

"Indeed I did. That cousin of mine, she sure turned my world upside-down. Gave me just a few dire moments to decide which way to take in my life. Live or die. Obviously both you and I chose life, or we wouldn't be standing here."  
"No," said Achilles, "and we would never have learned how manipulated we both were. We were just pawns on that board game, played by gods and kings and faithes and who knows whom." He rolled his eyes slightly when finishing.  
"And now you know that, Achilles?" she rested her hands on her hips, looking at him. She could hardly believe she was having this discussion.

"Yes. I know that I had to kill you and I had to kill a few other people and then I had to get killed myself. You know, I was fooled once as a youth. I was asked in a lucid dream if I wanted to die young and glorious or live a long and boring life as a nobody and die of old age. Being a brat with no brains, I chose the former of course. I'm just glad this sucker got a second chance. Because now I know there's no reason for holding grudges anymore, because none of us were ever in control of our destinies. I might still miss my poor cousin Patroklos, still I know he was also set up. We all were."

"And what has that taught you?" she asked, feeling that she was beginning to feel drawn in by his reasoning.  
"That now I'm a god. A god who knows what it's like to be a fooled and used mortal. A set up looser. This means I don't intend to play the same kind of rotten game. I won't con some poor mortals to gain some stupid, petty victory. Because in the long run it's not worth it. The Trojan War was an absurd insanity from the start. I remember Odysseus trying to tell me so, but naturally I wasn't listening. But he was the only one who really understood. He was awfully smart that man. Perhaps a bit too smart for himself, however I see now that he was right in so many things which I just shrugged off back then. I lived by the sword, he lived by something else. A honour I'm only beginning to understand, but which somehow feels important to me."

"You know she's here?" the Amazon couldn't help asking then.  
"Who?"  
"Helen."  
"Don't mention her!" Achilles made a face.  
"You don't like her either?"  
"She's been hitting at me," he said, craning his neck to check who might be listen, but Ares, Romulus and the rest had left to busy themselves with other things. Now the only ones around were some mortals taking care of parcels and goods. "And it seems she can't get it into her blond little head that I'm not interested."

"You're not?" Penthesileia grinned, tilting her head.  
"Hardly," he huffed in return. "What would I do with a little derp like that. All boobs and blond hair, no brain. She's pathetic! If I'd been Menelaos, you know, I'd thanked Paris for taking her with him. And then we would've been without that whole wretched war."

Now the Amazon felt how an explosion of titter threatened to gush out from her chest, and she put her hand to her mouth as her shoulders shook.  
"You know what, Achilles?" she began after catching her breath, and when he shook his head, she went on. "Then none of us would've been here and now. You'd be somewhere in Thessalia living that boring nobody life, and I'd be still hunting in the woods with my Amazon sisters. And none of us would've questioned that life. Perhaps wished that something exciting could have happened to them once in a while."  
"You got it, girl," Achilles said, and now he was grinning too. "We'd be dead by boredom rather than by iron and war."

"On the other hand," she guessed. "Fat Agamemnon would probably have come up with some other excuse for starting that war. Perhaps it would have started two or three years later, but I'm convinced we'd have it one way or another."  
"You have a point," he nodded his head and she felt a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

Then further conversations were cut off, because a well-known signal sounded through the camp. It was lunch time.

0O0O0O

"I might not hold grudges against you anymore, Achilles," Penthesileia said while they finished their meal. "But I still desire a revenge." She craned her head in the direction of the sand pit where the fighters trained.  
"A round two," Achilles smirked as he stretched out against the tent pole he was resting his back at. "Well, sure thing. I'd like to kick your nice little ass again, I just want to digest this pork for a while."  
"Deal! I have some things to take care off," she stood up. "But meet me within an hour down at the pit. Swords, that's fine with you?"  
"That's excellent!" he confirmed, looking so self-assured that she could hardly wait to take him down a few pegs.

0O0O0O

With a sharp clang their swords met and as hasty as they had launched out, they retreated. Then Penthesileia became the first to attack, forcing Achilles to back off a few steps, and she saw his eyes widen in surprise at her frenetic parry. He fenced her off, slid to the left and she followed him, stepped in closer, but not too close to let him get at her with that small dagger he carried in his left hand.

Instead she turned her torso, tried to get her own dagger into his waist more or less from behind. That was a dirty little trick Erebus had taught her, and which she had used several times later. The last time this very morning against uncle Caerus. But Achilles was not that easily fooled, he quickly turned his own torso, spun around and lashed out with a sandaled feet, putting it behind her knee, almost tripping her over, however the Amazon managed to regain her balance just in the last moment. In the same swift motion she lashed out with her blade again, meeting his as he riposted.

Just as immortals always did, Achilles and Penthesileia fought with sharp iron and the rules were such that what would have immobilized a mortal, counted for a defeat for the gods as well. If anyone of them got a hit which was a killer for a mortal, then they had lost that round. Now, Penthesileia and Achilles had agreed on best of five rounds, and they had battled for almost two hours, having two victories each. Thus this was the showdown round, and the one who won this would win the game. And none of those stubborn two were going to let the other one be victorious. Penthesileia wanted dearly a revenge from the event in Ilion and Achilles didn't want anyone to believe that he had lost his edge.

So she twisted her sword downwards, putting her own weight behind, hoping to twist his hand so he lost the weapon, but once again Achilles saw right through her try and slid backwards, spun around and within a heartbeat he initiated his own attack.

Just as planned, Penthesileia smirked, finally she had fooled him. As Achilles launched forward, she slammed down in the sand on her right knee, so that his weapon bolted right over her head, cutting off one third of the top of her crimson helmet crescent in the onrush. She thought she could hear her father letting up an appreciating laughter in that moment, but not letting the audience distract her, she pushed her own sword forwards, hitting Achilles between the legs.

Had he still been mortal, she would've neutered him with that move. Neutered him and then continuing upwards, cutting the man in half. That was an old trick she had used against a Thracian brute once in her youth, and sometimes the oldies are the goldies, because the enemy might've forgotten them. However, Achilles was immortal, and his body shielded against her forceful upwards trust. But as he did the sheer force of her stroke made him trip backwards instead, and he stumbled in the sand. The very same instance she stood and threw herself upon him, forcing him to really lose his balance and fall backwards in the sand. Then she was over him and pressed her dagger against his Adam's apple.

"Son of Tethys," she leered. "I believe you lost this one!"  
"Aww, crap," he sighed, turning his head instinctively to get away from the cold, sharp steel which was scraping against his shielded skin. Then she saw his eyes widen as if he had caught sight of something he really didn't want to see.  
"Achilles, darling!" a shrill voice cut through the air in the same instance. Helen!

Penthesileia was just about to turn her neck towards the sound, when she felt one large hand cradle the back of her head, forcefully pushing it back towards him.  
"Don't withdraw!" Achilles ordered her with steel in his voice, before he was kissing her with the same poignant intensity as he had fought her earlier.

Now what?


	6. Goddess' pledge

**Goddess' pledge **

Achilles was kissing her with the same poignant intensity as he had fought her earlier, and Penthesileia tried to gasp for breath, surprise and consternation getting the better of her. Now what? Was that some kind of way to distract her from claiming her victory?

The very next second she understood was he was up to, she was no adversary anymore, she had shifted to ally against one of the onlookers, and she would have laughed, had he not been busy with her mouth. With a part of her mind she recognized some kind of commotion over by the edge of the training pit, but she couldn't care less, she started to kiss him back.

Now, Penthesileia had to admit, she wasn't the most skillful kisser, she had never really had the use for that kind of expertise. Those men she had been with, she could count them on the fingers of one hand – and she would still have fingers left. The interactions had brief and unfulfilling, transitory encounters with other people who wanted nothing but an intercourse and then they were lost in the turmoil of life. Men (and two women as well) who she didn't miss a second and who she couldn't care the slightest about. However this had nothing to do with neither sex nor love, this was all about teaching that bitch Helen a lesson. To tell her that Achilles was not the slightest interested in the advances of the former Spartan queen.

As they broke their kiss, she inhaled and faced him, he was grinning.  
"Was that up to your expectations, son of Tethys?" she teased him.  
"Very much, daughter of Ares," he replied while they both stood up, brushing off sand from their hands, knees and torsos. "Honestly, I have had better kisses; then again this was all about..."  
"...you know who!" they both said at the same time, and then they couldn't help laughing.

"How about a new fight tomorrow?" Achilles then asked. "In the morning, before breakfast?"  
"With or without the kissing added?" Penthesileia jeeringly returned.  
"Let's not decide that yet," came the rapid answer.

O0O0O

"Now, did I just hear that you and Achilles were kissing each other down in the fighter's pit?" Thrassa asked and Penthesileia looked up from the mending of her boot. Not interested in complicating things even further, she decided to tell her sister the truth, and spare nothing.  
"It was all about getting Helen of his back," she said, and looked straight into those brown eyes which were about the only thing blond Thrassa had together with their father. Thrassa was petite and looked slightly delicate, still the Amazon knew that Thrassa could handle both the sword and the bows and arrows, even if her main subject was healing – saving lives rather than taking them.

Now her sister shifted in her settee, put away her goblet of wine on a small table and spread her blue skirt over her knees with both her small hands. Penthesileia, who was sitting on a similar settee in the shadow under the red baldachin, knew that her sister was not giving this train of thought up.

"Leia?" Thrassa began. "It's OK if I call you Leia, right?"  
"Sure," the Amazon answered absent-minded.  
"I saw something else," Thrassa began. "Not in that sand pit, but later. The look that big guy gave you, he wanted to take off your clothes, if I should express myself a bit frank."

"Yeah, right!" Penthesileia huffed. "The man killed me once. Or how should I say – would have. He's not interested in getting me laid. So just forget it, right!" Realizing she had sounded a bit more hostile than she intended, she went on: "I'm an Amazon. We tend to defeat the men, so we're seldom attractive to them. Achilles' only reason for kissing me in the pit was because Helen was there and he wanted to get a message through to her. The message that he'd rather have an Amazon who was his enemy once than her. Now, it might sound odd that I let myself get used that way, but if it hadn't been for that bitch, that wretched war would never had happened. And regardless of that, Helen has been getting on my nerves ever since I came here. So on the spur of the moment I went along with what Achilles suggested."

"I was right in my assumption then," Thrassa said. "No offence, sister, but your kind don't know that much about men, right?"  
"No," Penthesileia had to admit. "But..."  
"When I met Tridion," Thrassa began, hinting at the Lusitanian god whom she was married to. "I wasn't that experienced myself. Or perhaps it was all about me not having the best self-confidence in the world. But he had set his mind upon me, and he behaved just like Achilles did today."

"Come on, Thrassa!" Penthesileia sighed. "I might be a novice when it comes to men. But to Achilles, I'm just another somebody to spar with in the pit."  
"Don't be so sure of that," Thrassa had got an almost mischievous smirk upon her pretty little lips, and Penthesileia had to admit that she shared one more trait with their father.  
"Yes, I'm pretty sure of that," she insisted, and then she felt that little beast which was annoyance start to prickle at the back of her skull. Since she wanted nothing less than to snarl at her sister for being such a nymph, she sighed and asked if they couldn't talk about something else. "Tell me about your area of work. What do you do besides stitching people together when they have been run through by weapons?"

Thrassa lit up.  
"Actually battle wounds are minor problems in a venture like this. Most of the time it's the various flues people come down with. Or food poisoning." Then she had launched herself in a long description of her work as a healer and medic, the places she had seen, the people she had met, including more than her fair share of peculiar foreign gods. Once again Penthesileia felt this sense of adventure burn inside of her. Save for Laran she hadn't met any of those local gods, and she wondered what they were like.

"Then, they can't pronounce dad's name," Thrassa said and stretched her hands over her head, to the rattling sound of her many bangles falling down across her arms. "You know they keep saying Ars, or Mars. So I teased him and said that if he wasn't such an arse he would never had acquired such a nick. Not surprisingly he didn't find that funny at all."  
"I wonder what they'd make out of my name then," Penthesileia said, but Thrassa didn't reply. Instead she shifted her attention as a shadow fell between the setting sun and the two goddesses.  
"Here's your boyfriend," she said and grinned.

Wanting to groan, Penthesileia turned to face Achilles, who was strolling across the grass plane and stopped right in front of them. He was carrying an amphora in his right hand and three cups in the left.  
"I've brought some Etruscan cider, I wonder if you might want some!" Achilles said as he held out a hand with the cups.  
"Yes, please," Penthesileia replied, accepting one of the cups and let the blond Thessalian fill it up with a golden, almost sparkling beverage. Then Thrassa wasn't late to follow, even though she had just had a large goblet of wine.

So as the time went by, the sun disappeared behind the forest-clad hills in the west and the stars began to dot the darkening sky like lost diamonds, Penthesileia's sister fell asleep in the settee while Penthesileia and Achilles went on talking, sipping their cider. Around them the sounds of the camp quieted down and soon the only thing heard was the sounds of the night, the crickets, the wind through the trees, the odd hunting night bird and the perimeter guards talking as they passed by.  
"What time can it be?" Penthesileia asked when they both realized that the amphora was empty and they both were quite tipsy.  
"Closing on midnight," Achilles said. "We better go to bed, if we are to battle before breakfast tomorrow."  
"Yes that," she tittered. "Do we really have to?"

"I want revenge," he insisted, but he sounded more playful than overly serious and she shook her head in amusement.  
"You know, Achilles, we're even now. You got me in Ilium, I got you in Latium, so shan't we relax a bit?"  
"Perhaps you're right, Amazon," he chuckled. "Nevertheless we can't sit here all night or we won't be out of bed in decent time tomorrow. And you know how your dad goes about with sleepyheads."  
"Yes, the bucket of ice-cold water," Penthesileia had her very own experience of that from one of her first weeks in Latium. That was not something she wanted a repeat of, even if it had almost cured her hangover by the mere surprise and adrenaline shock of it.

"So let's avoid that," the Thessalian said and stood, bent down and picked up Penthesileia's unconscious sister and asked her to take the amphora and the cups. Obediently she grabbed the trinkets as well as the extra pillows she and Thrassa had placed underneath the baldachin earlier in the day. Then she followed Achilles as he walked over to Thrassa's tent where they exchanged burdens so she could go inside and help her sister off with her pants and jacket and down in the bed.  
"U know he has that look, Leia," Thrassa murmured half awake and half in sleep. "Achilles. Checking you out."

Just sighing in response, Penthesileia spread the linen sheets, the woolen blanket and the bear skin over her sister against the night chill of early spring before she turned out the ball of divine light she had let hoover to the left of her meanwhile. It got pitch dark and her eyes immediately adjusted to infrared sight, turning her sleeping sister into a big, whitish blotch against the reds and the blues of the rest of the items in the tent. Smiling at the sleeping form, she turned and walked out from the tent again.

As she exited the tent she had perhaps expected to be alone, but she found Achilles lingering outside, regarding her with thoughtful eyes.  
"She's all tuned out now?" he asked, whispering.  
"Yes," she nodded his head. "She had some wine before us you know. And she doesn't seem to be the type who drinks a lot."  
"Fully understandable with her profession," Achilles commented. "There's always someone calling for her help with this or with that. But let's not talk about her, let's talk about you, Leia!"

"There's not much to say save for what has already been said," she sighed. She felt tired and she really wanted to be in bed by now. It had been a long day and she knew that tomorrow would have its allotted amount of surprises in the can. Probably her father wanted to battle her in the pit. It has been a while since now, and the last time he had defeated her completely. So now she owed it both to him and to herself to do better. And luckily Achilles seemed to sense her fatigue, he stepped closer to her and ran two fingers across her cheek.  
"Till tomorrow then, Leia," he whispered. "I'll walk with you to your tent."

O0O0O

The dreams had been full of HIM, and it annoyed her when she woke up. Wet dreams about Achilles – now THAT was embarrassing if anything!

Luckily the cider hadn't caused her to oversleep, it was still rather early in the morning and not many people about. It was a bleating sheep which had awaken her and just as usual Penthesileia didn't linger in bed, but was soon up, washed off her face and got dressed. When she stepped out of her tent she saw that the lights were on in the bakery tent, but there was no smell of bread yet, so she realized she would have to wait for breakfast for about an hour. That together with the sense of not being that clean, gave her an idea. She should go down to the beach and have a swim in the ocean! It might still be cold in the water, but since she knew how to shield and still get washed off these days, that wouldn't prove any problem.

Said and done, she turned around and went back into her tent to fetch a blanket, a set of clean clothes and a salt water soup. Then she left the camp, flying this time, which took her faster down to the water edge than any other means of transportation. To heck with her father, telling her to avoid flying when there were a lot of mortals around. Besides there weren't that many to be seen right now. Some girls carrying buckets on their way to milk the sheep and the cows, that was all. As one of them turned to look at her, Penthesileia got the distinct feeling that the girl was seeing right through her and knew about her dream! Her excruciating dream about Achilles!

No, the Amazon soon shrugged it off, the girl was just a mortal, how could she see such a thing? Too vivid imagination!

The sea was calm and shone like a brass mirror in the early morning light. Only soft, almost shy waves were gently patting the shore and gulls were calling out as they fished for clams. Clams, which were brought up in the sky and dropped down on stones, where they cracked up and displayed the meaty innards – breakfast for hungry birds. Far off in the distance the blue, rocky islands were slightly shrouded in mist, seemingly hovering above the water surface. In the west a pale half-moon was descending.

Shredding her clothes, Penthesileia put them together with the towel and the clean outfit in a cleft between two boulders and then she took her soap and stepped out in the water. It was chilly and she felt her shielding trigger, still it was a lovely feeling wetting her still sleepy body, feeling it wake up and how sweat and dirt became washed off. She made a quick dive to soak her hair as well, careful not to wet her soap too much, they were expensive those things. Then she began working up lather and was soon using it to clean off every nook and cranny of her lithe body. Finally she washed her hair as well, diving trice to make sure she removed all soap from her hair.

As she broke the surface the last time she became aware of him before she actually heard him.  
"Well hello, sweetheart! You also enjoy the morning baths?"  
"Achilles?"  
"Bright observation," he smirked and she had to brace herself from groining.

The next moment he dived under – only to surface just where she stood, laughingly embracing her.  
"Achilles! What do you think... I almost dropped my soap!" she exclaimed at him.  
"Oh sorry about that," he smiled. "But don't worry, Amazon! I have a lot of that commodity back in the camp."

The next moment he was leaning over her and catching her lips in a fervent, hot kiss. Before she got the chance to push him off her, she felt how her treacherous body responded to his maneuverings.  
"Achilles!" she huffed, trying to worm away. "Now what? You spotted Helen?"  
"This has nothing to do with Helen," he replied, his voice suddenly husky and clouded with desire. "This has to do with this beauty in the sea, a goddess sweeter than Aphrodite herself!"  
"Oh come on! Don't wreck your tongue, Thessalian!" she snorted in response. "Flatter like that doesn't work with girls like me, and you ought to know it."

"But admit it, you feel it too," he insisted. "There's more between you and me than some sand pit battling."  
"You know," she sighed. "I didn't come here for this. Still... I mean... No, I cannot deny it. The irony of it! Who could guess?"

He silenced her by kissing her once more, and this time she didn't hesitate kissing back, letting her mind following her body. She imagined she just had to go with the flow, let this handsome, blond man closing the bizarre circle of their interaction.

O0O0O

It was a bright late summer's day, and the sun was beaming down over the Agora of Olympos, where almost the complete population of the divine abode was gathered. A warm wind was pulling at colourful banners hanging from flag poles and spreading flower petals all over the place, adding to the joyous mode of the gathering as Achilles and Penthesileia stood up and walked over to the king of the gods who was awaiting them on the dais. He was dressed in his formal togas of shiny white, golden and deep purple and he was carrying a long, gilded staff adorned with the symbol of his office – the eagle and the lightning bolts. He sure looked awe-inspiring there, still his face was kind and encouraging, the mirth shown upon his lips as he faced yet another in a long row of unexpected divine couples.

Perhaps he himself had set the standard once, by marrying Hera of Argos – letting love surprise the surrounding deities instead of going after Metis again, try to win her back. The latter had after all been the apposite and expected course of action of a king. However Zeus had chosen to listen to his heart instead of what might be considered prime and proper, and thus he had enthused other divine couples to follow the example of him and Hera. To let their heart rule and expected protocol be damned.

Penthesileia smiled back at the god, she had rehearsed for hours what to say today, still she was a bit anxious of a slip of her tongue. Then again, who cared. She was going to be the center of attention of the many elegantly clad people here today, and she was telling them that she was doing this with her heart and her mind. Therefore it was no reason for her to be nervous. People here were on her side. She was no Amazon anymore maneuvering in a rule-infested society. Because oddly enough, had she found, the world of the gods were a lot freer and more open minded when it came to improvising.

"This is my pledge as a goddess," she began her speech, facing first Zeus, then Achilles, and finally the gathered gods and goddesses, spotting her father somewhere up there to the right, in his trademark crimson tunic. "It is my pledge to join this god Achilles, son of Thetis, in marriage and to begin a new family foundation. It is also my pledge to follow him to the islet of Appia to work together with him to ensure the prosperity and safety of the new colonies there. The gathered gods and goddesses are my witnesses."  
"And you, Achilles, son of Thetis," Zeus turned his attention to the Thessalian god, the sun shining off his blond locks and golden headband, and Penthesileia noted how her husband-to-be swallowed slightly before he put words to his pledge.

"This is my pledge as a god," he began. "It is my pledge to join this goddess Penthesileia, daughter of Ares, in marriage and to begin a new family foundation. It is also my pledge to follow her to Appia to work together with her to ensure the prosperity and safety of the new colonies there. Of Rome and the other towns. We will work closely together with Penthesileia's brother Romulus to assure greatness of this new land. The gathered gods and goddesses are my witnesses."  
"I wish you a successful venture in that!" Zeus had said and smiled gently before he had begun reciting the traditional, divine wedding oath, having them both deliver those words which felt almost as old as time itself.

After their traditional kiss, Achilles had let go of her slightly, facing her.  
"Leia, dearest," he had smiled. "We must be one of the strangest couple in history. That war almost made it impossible."  
"But we overcome that, husband of mine," she whispered back, striking his chin with the end of her thumb. "Besides, if there hadn't been any war, the two of us might never had met. I love you, Achilles."  
"And I love you, my dear Penthesileia!" he smiled back, before taking her face in his large hands again, and kissing her even deeper and more fervently, to the joy of the large audience.

O0O0O THE END O0O0O

_A/N - This idea came to me, inspired by the tragic event in the Iliad, and I wanted to give it my own spin, see where I could take Achilles and Penthesileia. I'm a bit sad though that I didn't get any readers, I had planned more for this story, but writing for nobody isn't fun so instead I decided to tie it all together and end it here to move on to new projects. / SE _


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